Discuss the possibility of banning Porygon-Z from the ORAS LU metagame.

Make sure you post intelligently based off of experience in the tier. Posts based off theorymon risk forum infractions.

Attempt to find the checks and counters (or lack thereof) for Porygon-Z as well as its impact and power in the metagame. Do not simply say "it's broken" or "it's not broken". Back up your arguments on why you think it should be banned or not.

Most importantly, elaborate on your points and try to think of counter arguments as you're posting. No one or two sentence posts will be allowed, and this will be strictly enforced.

If a consensus is reached, the result will likely be implemented in the metagame.

So Porygon-Z is an excellent pokemon with 135 special attack, which is a lot and a decent speed in base 90, which is kinda good in a tier full of Nidoqueen, Hitmonlee etc. It has 3 good abilities but only 2 that can be really used in competitive in Download and Adaptability. It's bulk however is non existant.

It can use several sets: Choice Scarf/Specs, Agility, Nasty Plot. Hardly it will use a set of LO 4 atks because of the restricted movepool that doesn't have the most important move it would need: Flamethrower.

The choices Set goes generally with Tri attack, Dark Pulse, Thunderbolt/Ice beam and Trick and they hit very hard. The only way of dealing with these sets would be to scout the move it's going to lock into but sometimes you can end losing a pokemon just by being predicted, that's why some checks are really bad and not reliable.

These sets just dismantle Stall and balance very easily and are quite easy to fit now that Porygon-2 and Doublade left the tier.

The nasty plot set acts as a win condition very nicely, and can tear appart stall and balance again. However it is more exposed to being revenge killed by scarf users ( Flygon, Typhlosion, Tyrantrum etc ) so it has to be played more wisely, instead of just clicking tri attack and dealing a lot of damages. Also the fact it is quite frail makes the set up a little bit hard, but it can find the set up on choice mons locked into the wrong move or on walls that have nothing to hit it with.
I don't have a specific counter in my head to this set, because it's very hard switching into Porygon-Z. I prefer running Download on this set so it can get +3 after Nasty plot, assuming it sets up on a physical wall

The last set I want to talk about is Agility. This thing destroys Hyper offense that don't have priority such as mach punch hitmonlee or any scarfer that can outspeed P-Z at +2 speed and makes huge holes for this team archetype. Due to how much Choices are used in HO, it wouldn't be hard for P-Z to set up after pokemon are at -2 attacking stat or locked into a bad move. Hyper Offense has literally no way of dealing with AgiliP-Z

When Porygon-2 and Doublade left LU, Porygon-Z became a big issue very hard to check or counter, and in my opinion it should be banned in LU

I'm going to keep this short and sweet, because lazers are powering up quick time.

Porygon-Z is a behemoth as said with 135 base special attack, decent enough base 90 speed, and average but good enough bulk 85/70/75, and an array of awesome abilities. It has a fairly strong move distribution for a special attacker leaving it to run sets that make use of powerful special attacks, as well as decent supporting moves to make use of, and a wide group of sets that it can take advantage of that work in different ways.

All its sets are pretty straight forward, Choice Scarf acts as a revenge sweeper or hit and run Pokemon usually making good use of the Download ability to hit any potential target hard unless they switch in a resist to the move you use. Most Pokemon that Porygon-Z would switch into whether it be due to taking a ghost move or while the opponent uses some set up move/support move, or be from a team death, it generally tries to switch into Pokemon with lower Sp.Def to activate Download which are very common in the tier. You'll find more standard Pokemon have less Sp.Def than Defense, which makes the use of at least 4 EVs to Sp.Def mitigate this from happening on Pokemon with the same Def/Sp.Def, but can be something overlooked pretty easily.

Choice Specs is just made to hit an opponent as hard as Pokemonly possible. Specs Adaptability Tri-Attack and Hyper Beam are no joke, especially with Porygon2 no longer in the tier to have an easy tank that works with practically everything. Outside AV Goodra/Dragalge, you need a strong invest to a good bulky steel type, meaning making Registeel work or using the lovely Iron Solid Snake Mega Steelix. Also, working out the calcs on this one:

Lol...metagross, you don't tank a Hyper Beam. Other two are semi-solid answers....but with no recovery, Steelix can be dead weight after an attack. Specs Dark Pulse/Tri-Attack doing the same damage means a 3HKO, so it'll lose no matter what unless you do some prior damage to P-Z. No matter what you do, if P-Z outspeeds you/forces you to switch, unless you are faster than it, there's a strong chance something dies to Specs, especially with no P2. Ghosts don't exactly fit every team build, and outside choice sets they normally lose to the NP/Agility (or combined Double Dance set).

Double Dance Porygon-Z is pretty difficult at times to pull off, but most times you only need to pick using Agility or Nasty Plot depending on the team you face, which means Balanced teams can be a bit tougher for it, but it still has power enough to lazer through most Pokemon of average bulk. As far as attacks go, there really isn't much that Tri-Attack and Dark Pulse on any set won't cover. Doublade wasn't even much of a problem for P-Z only for choiced sets. P2 kept was universal to hampering it a bit, thanks to recovery and the bulk it had to tank every set bar NP version. Now, Pory-Z can be generally fast enough without too many resists to level threats to it.

The cool thing I learned about P-Z's bulk is that it's enough to live a one off from most general Scarf users if you keep it healthy, meaning you leave it to hit and run tactics if it's not OHKO'ing a switch in, but only if they'll hit you with something neutral or average in base power/stats. It's bulk is barely enough it can lean sometimes to the P-Z user's favor in some situations.

All in all, I find that P-Z without P2 and a few other things like Shaymin and Doublade, and several Pokemon from the past that have rose in the tier, you're kind of forced into using something bulkier or having to sack something for the sake of possibly revenge killing it. Offensive teams don't really have a problem with any P-Z set except Scarf P-Z or if they for whatever reason allow it to get an Agility off, but balanced and defensive teams can fall prey to it very easily, and even some reinforced Pokemon (some Pokemon with heavy Sp.Def investment or Assault Vest can become liabilities even if they tank a hit, due to natural lack of recovery for many of these Pokemon). Really, I'm leaning its something that should leave LU.

Porygon-Z is a fantastic offensive threat in the LU metagame, it has a cool moveset to make use of its stellar base 135 SAtk, 90 base speed that's not bad and reasonable bulk, added to this it has cool 3 to make use of (Adaptability is usually the best because it offers a safe way to boost its stabs, while Download and Analytic are a bit more tricky to activate, but they can work nicely on choiced sets) . The most effective sets for Porygon-Z are the choiced ones and the sets that make use of boosting moves to optimize the sweeping capabilities of PZ (Double Dancer, but also Agility+3 Attacks is pretty good). Porygon-Z is really solid as a choice user because of its great coverage and acces to trick; I will not talk a lot about the specsed one, because even if it is pretty insane (I think that there isn't really a safe switch-in to its moves, because most ones have no real way to recover off the big damages they take), it shares this ability with other Pokemon in the tier (Choice Specs Exploud, Dragalge, Yanmega and CB Tyrantrum) and compared to these is often outclassed (Exploud, doesn't need prediction on ghost mons, and is bulkier, Dragalge and Tyrantrum are way more bulkyer, while Yanmega like Exploud it really likes to just press the stab, and also has more speed), and if balanced and stallish teams can have an hard time against it, offensive teams usually have enough pressure to prevent him to switchin safely if not on revengekilling; The choice scarf set otherwise is just really strong, it has way more powerspyke than other scarfers in the tier thanks to the ability boost (and the high base SAtk), and is litteraly painful for offensive teams, it deals massive damage to most of the offensive pokemon I can imagine (I think that we should also consider the burn/freeze/para chance on is main stab that's absolutely awful for offensive teams, cause they don't usually run a cleric, and a status on the dedicated PZ check can litteraly decides the sorts of a match) and also it is pretty difficult to outspeed and so revengekill it (the only revelant scarf users able to do it are Flygon, Zoroark and Delphox, and all of them needs specific moves to kill it, or in the case of Delphox the Blaze buff), added to this I can't really find a situation where Scarf PZ is useless, even against more defensive teams that can "easily" handle its power it can just trick a scarf on a crucial member and still doing its job. However the set that I think it gives PZ the edge over other powerful Pokemon in the tier, is the Double Dance set; the versatility of the Double Dance set it's just enormous, and when it manages to get the right +2 depending on the enemy team is just gg (unless the opponent has a way to revengekill it with priorities, even if neither Hitmonlee's Mach Punch can kill it at full life), also with this set PZ can just equip a Life Orb (or a Silk Scarf if you feel bad because of the recoil damage) making its attacks almost uncounterable. Thanks to the viablity of all these sets Porygon-Z is an high pressure Pokemon in the current LU tier, it has great raw power on choiced sets and enormous sweeping potential on the Double Dance set, the unpredictability of its sets makes it easier for the PZ user to create sweeping opportunities, that often just end the match if they work; because of all said before I think that Porygon-Z should leave the tier, because of it being so centralizing in the tier and really hard to stop (no reliable checks or counters for the specs or double dance sets, and a lot of difficulties to revengekill it because of its pretty good 90 base speed, acces to Agility and reasonable bulkyness to tank priority moves)

So, it's been two weeks, people are afraid of our massively long posts, and can't find much else to add, which can be threatening, but throw in your own opinions and posts if you have them in future suspects guy, we don't bite. Anyway, Porygon-Z hosts an overwhelming destructive power and can be a nightmare for different team styles for many reasons ranging from it's destructive 135 base Special Attack which can be combined with Choice Specs causing everything slower than it to fear a OHKO unless the attack is resisted, or decent enough speed combined with a massive Special Attack to run a Choice Scarf set that again can easily punch a hole through offensive teams, and wear down bulky attackers with little effort if it has to employ hit and run tactics. For this reason the Laser Duck from Corrupt France will be Banned from the ORAS LU tier.